Super Chips
I always knew there was something deeply weird about those bright orange Doritos. But I had no idea they gave you superhero powers. They can’t make you invisible, but it turns out that rubbing them on your skin might make you transparent. At least it works for mice.
To be honest, it’s not just Doritos. The magic ingredient is tartrazine, more familiarly known as the food dye “FD&C Yellow no. 5.” Researchers at Stanford University rubbed a solution of tartrazine on the bellies, scalps, and hind limbs of a sedated mouse. And voila! They were able to see the little critter’s internal organs — intestines, liver, bladder, pumping heart, even muscle fibers. When they washed the stuff off, the skin returned to normal.
So perhaps, one day in the not too distant future, if your doctor wants to make sure your liver, say, is in good working order, you may not have to crawl inside an MRI scanner — and pay for it. You may just need to bring a bag of finely crushed Doritos to the outpatient diagnostic center. If you’re lucky, insurance will cover the chips.
OK, to be perfectly transparent (tee-hee) the researchers used a much higher concentration of the dye than you would find in snack foods. When I got to that part of the study, I was a little bummed. I was hoping to grab some chips and get a glimpse of my kidneys at work. Still, if this works for humans, it could be huge for medicine.
’til next time,
Avery
Image by go_see via Pixabay